ot telling him when the
Doctor passed; he did not refuse the canoes." The sight of our men, now
armed with muskets, had a great effect. Without any bullying, firearms
command respect, and lead men to be reasonable who might otherwise feel
disposed to be troublesome. Nothing, however, our fracas with Mpende
excepted, could be more peaceful than our passage through this tract of
country in 1856. We then had nothing to excite the cupidity of the
people, and the men maintained themselves, either by selling elephant's
meat, or by exhibiting feats of foreign dancing. Most of the people were
very generous and friendly; but the Banyai, nearer to Tette than this,
stopped our march with a threatening war-dance. One of our party,
terrified at this, ran away, as we thought, insane, and could not, after
a painful search of three days, be found. The Banyai, evidently touched
by our distress, allowed us to proceed. Through a man we left on an
island a little below Mpende's, we subsequently learned that poor
Monaheng had fled thither, and had been murdered by the headman for no
reason except that he was defenceless. This headman had since become
odious to his countrymen, and had been put to death by them.

On the 23rd of June we entered Pangola's principal village, which is
upwards of a mile from the river. The ruins of a mud wall showed that a
rude attempt had been made to imitate the Portuguese style of building.
We established ourselves under a stately wild fig-tree, round whose trunk
witchcraft medicine had been tied, to protect from thieves the honey of
the wild bees, which had their hive in one of the limbs. This is a
common device. The charm, or the medicine, is purchased of the dice
doctors, and consists of a strip of palm-leaf smeared with something, and
adorned with a few bits of grass, wood, or roots. It is tied round the
tree, and is believed to have the power of inflicting disease and death
on the thief who climbs over it. Superstition is thus not without its
uses in certain states of society; it prevents many crimes and
misdemeanours, which would occur but for the salutary fear that it
produces.

Pangola arrived, tipsy and talkative.--"We are friends, we are great
friends; I have brought you a basket of green maize--here it is!" We
thanked him, and handed him two fathoms of cotton cloth, four times the
market-value of his present. No, he would not take so small a present;
he wanted a double-barrelled rifl